Five times Sam has saved Dean in his dreams
by mayachain
Summary: ...without knowing it and one time he doesn't . Tag of sorts to 3x10. Just because Sam doesn't believe he can do something doesn't mean he hasn't already done it - several times.
1. one side: Sam

**Five times Sam has saved Dean in his dreams without knowing it...**

**1988**

_When he opens his eyes, he's in a boy's room. Awed eyes take in toys of the like he's never seen before, but his tiny fingers stop reaching for them when he catches a faint scent of smoke. _

Sammy Winchester went to bed quite oblivious that the knowledge about magical protection John Winchester has acquired during the last few years is still very limited. He is is lying face-down in a run-down motel bed, drooling a little into a smelly pillow, fast asleep.

_A scream and a cry from outside the door make Sammy want to hide under the bed, but he wants to find Dad and Dean more._

He dozed off while waiting for Dad to come back from a short walk, one he'd promised he'd be back from soon, _real soon_. So far, little Sammy hasn't been given a reason to doubt his father's words, and so he fell asleep to the sound of Dean turning the pages of a comic book, feeling safe and protected.

_Cautiously, he reaches up for the door handle, and flinches when he hears his father's strangled shout._

Five years old, he has no way of knowing that every night for the last two weeks a child has died from a creature feeding off enhancing its fear, from the stress of a nightmare becoming too much. He slipped into his first dream without a conscious thought to the fact that at eight, Dean can only stay awake for so long.

_Flames are roaring in his ears. He can barely make out his big brother's form through the thick smoke. _

Dean sometimes has nightmares about the night neither he nor Dad will talk about. Since no-one will talk about it, Sammy doesn't know that Dean sometimes dreams of the monster killing first Mom, then Dad, then Sammy snatched out of Dean's arms, before leaving Dean to die alone in the flames.

_All he knows is that there's fire and they need to get out and Dean needs to __move__, so he screams._

**1997**

It's been roughly six years since Sammy Winchester was blissfully unaware of the existence of evil things. He's learned a lot about them by now, some things he finds interesting and some (more) things he wishes he could forget but won't (ever). He's fully aware that when Dad and Dean go out for a "short trip", there's no guarantee they'll come back unharmed, and he no longer remembers what it's like to feel completely safe and protected. He's been with them on a lot of hunting trips himself and knows more than enough about the things that could go wrong.

The only reason he's at the motel room now instead of with them is that during the last trip, something _did_ go wrong and the creature broke his arm. He tried to stay awake to wait and see whether or not they got home safe, he really tried. However, the painkillers Dad all but forced him to take have made him woozy and so ultimately, he lost the fight and zonked out.

*

Five miles from the motel room Sam has fallen asleep in, Dean Winchester is valiantly trying to stay awake, squinting at the road while steering the Impala. Dad is dozing in the passenger seat, injured, and he needs to get them back to the motel room fast so that he and Sammy can patch him up. So that he can go to the bathroom and stitch up the gash to his side he didn't tell Dad about, and it's one more sign as to which of them hit their head harder because his father didn't even protest when Dean said he would drive.

_Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake..._ He's staring at the road so intently that he doesn't realize he's not seeing the real road anymore until Sammy is sitting on Dad's lap in the passenger seat and shouting _Dean! Dean, wake the fuck up!_

**2003**

Sam Winchester has been skimming through a large pile of notes all afternoon, but he suspects he must've fallen asleep because the main topic of what he's reading most certainly isn't civil law any more. The headline on the slightly crumbled piece of paper he's holding reads _'CHUPACABRA?'_, and it's not his handwriting forming the shape of the letters.

He needs to wake up and go back to cramming, all the more so because exam time is imminent, but there are irregularities in the notes he sees before him that catch his eye.

Victims and their relations, locations of multiple attacks, patterns, each place's history, a list of possible weapons to use... shape of injuries, length of claws, coloring of scales... It's exactly how Sam would do the research if something had killed his laptop and if he weren't, you know, asleep in the library at Stanford. It looks out of place and unfamiliar in Dean's barely legible scrawl.

Sam frowns and carefully goes through everything once more. _Shape of injuries, list of weapons, scales, claws. _The exam is tomorrow; he really needs to wake up. But.

"It's not a Chupacabra," he says to the silent presence behind him. "You'll need different weapons for this one." Frowning harder at the information he's got, he tries to come up with suggestions, is still trying to think of something when he's jostled awake by one of the librarians.

**2005**

Sam sits up in bed with a strangled shout, panting heavily. He's soaked with sweat, and his heart beats fast, fast, fast. Next to him, Jess makes a muffled sound of concern, but her secretive boyfriend is having nightmares far too often for her to really wake up anymore. A delicate hand makes a seeking motion towards his side of the bed, and Sam tries to take calming breaths, laces their fingers together and curls up close to her.

It was an especially vivid dream. Somehow more real than his own terrible memories, and his memories of rare stints to random hospitals are all as horrifying as the circumstances that sent them there. But it can't be real, because Dad would never leave one of them alone in a hospital. Even in the most pronounced phases of his hunting mania, he would either stay and conduct more research by Sam's or Dean's bedside, _call someone_ or, at worst, leave them alone together.

There's no way Dean is lying in a hospital by himself somewhere, slipping in and out of comas with no hope, no expectation that someone will come. There _aren't_ only nurses and doctors keeping him company, doing a very bad job at reaching him.

Dean's fine.

It was just a dream. He and Jess are supposed to visit her parents in a few days; Sam's brain probably did some projecting of abandonment issues or, or something. It was nothing. Just a weird, Winchester nightmare.

Still, he can't quite shake the image of the stark white hospital room, the way Dean's hand clutched at him when his dream-self sat down in the empty chair, and the sound of his own voice, "I'm here, Dean. I'm here."

**2008**

All the way back, Sam can tell there's something in Bobby's mind, but the older man doesn't strike up a conversation before they're inside the hotel and Dean's walked on ahead to find Bela.

"So you did a little dream-weavin' on your own back there, huh?"

"Yeah, I just sort of concentrated and it happened," Sam says, somehow at a loss for how to explain it better.

"Didn't have anything to do with..." and the way Bobby hesitates causes the faint ringing of alarm bells, "...you know, your psychic stuff?"

It's unexpected enough that it stops Sam short. _His whatever what?_ There's only one answer he can think of, _wants_ to think of, "No," but they can both hear the uncertainty in his voice and it's _Bobby_, so he has to amend it with "I mean, I don't think so."

Bobby gives him a hard look, as if trying to determine if Sam is telling the truth or just _thinking_ he's telling the truth, but then it's over and he's turning away with a quiet "Okay. Good."

Sam is left frowning, and trails after him with the sinking feeling that his world just got slightly tilted once more.

**...and one time he doesn't**

**2008**

When he opens his eyes, he's in a girl's room, but if he looks hard enough he can see traces of things that belong to a teenager, a young mother, a middle-aged wife, an old woman. When he looks at her, she tries to appear as the six-year-old he first met her in, but other images are there as well, flickering.

"You'd think demons wouldn't know how to dream, wouldn't you," he says conversationally and leans against a wardrobe. "By the way, I know many girls like pink, but the shade of pink you're wearing there? Not real."

"What are you doing here?" she hisses, trying for superior but failing. She shakes herself, apparently trying to wake herself up but she can't. Her eyes go white as she attempts to slam him into a wall or possibly cushions, but instead she is the one who is trapped, with no opportunity for movement.

"You shouldn't have gone vacationing inside little humans all the time. It addles your mind; that's what happens with children," he informs her, voice almost kind.

She looks at him with teary, big doe eyes, but it's no hardship to see the millennia-old evil lurking behind them.

"So," Sam Winchester says and claps his hands together. The cute room vanishes. "Enough of this. This is your nightmare, so naturally, I'm gonna kill you. And you'll be dead. Vanquished. Eradicated. But first, you will tell me the quickest way to free my brother. Only him. All of him. Without releasing a single one of your fellow hell-spawn."

At her anguished wail, he smiles.

_End._

_*_

_*_

_*_

Notes: A warm thank you to **samidha** for venturing into "Five things" land with me.  
The dialogue in the fifth section is taken directly from _Dream a little Dream of me_ (3x10), which means I cannot claim any kind of ownership to it.


	2. flipside: Dean

**Four times Dean's ass was saved by Sam unwittingly trespassing in his dreams...**

**1988**

_Dean can't move. The monster that came into their house and set everything on fire has already killed Mom, her screams cut to a terrible stop only to be replaced by Daddy's strangled shout._ Take your brother outside, fast as you can, don't look back, _and the hallway is already thick with smoke, Sammy a heavy weight in his arms. _Now, Dean, go! _but his feet won't listen, Daddy is still and silent behind him and he cannot see through the smoke. He tries to yell, scream for help, but no sound will come out, and even Sammy blinking up at him is silent._

_There are not footsteps to hear, but through the flames a looming shadow emerges, coming closer and closer still. Dean can't move, it's as if the whole soccer team are holding on to him tightly, rooting him to the spot. His heart beats faster, faster, as yellow eyes gleam manically at him and inhuman fingers snatch little Sammy out of his grip. The creature's hand makes one quick, cruel move, and there's a horrible snick, and little Sammy is dumped onto the floor at Dean's useless, useless feet, his charge and his only family left, small and defenseless, dead._

_Dean's cry stays stuck in his throat. The monster turns and walks away to where the door must be, leaving Dean to stare after it in frozen shock, a four-year-old not worth enough to kill by hand._

_The flames consuming their house roar, but Dean is too numb to care. Soon it will get impossible to breathe. _Now Dean, go _echoes through his mind, but that was to rescue Sammy and Sammy is gone now; even his tiny body has vanished. He's the only one left, it's not as if he wants to live, and his thoughts are blank as he lets himself sink to the floor._

_The flames draw closer and closer, and he squeezes his eyes shut, waits to be swallowed. Behind him, five-year-old Sammy starts to scream._

**1997**

It's been a long time since Dean Winchester last slept deeply enough to be bothered by nightmares. Oh, whenever something bad happens, like last week's poltergeist grabbing hold of Sammy and breaking his arm before either Dad or Dean could get off a shot, he has bad dreams for a while, his mind replaying every which way he failed, how the trip could've ended so much worse over and over. However, it seems, that ever since his brother went with them on his first real hunt, all the really bad nightmares have happened to Sam.

_At least he won't dream about this,_ Dean thinks and winces as he steers the Impala through a bend in the road against the pain in his head and his arms. Dean wouldn't mind a dream showing him how this past hunt might have gone without Sammy injured, with all three of them there, but another part is grateful that a cast-wrapped arm spared his brother further nightmare material. Sure, he'll get to see their injuries, will get to play nursemaid along with Dean to Dad. Judging by the way Dean is getting more tired by the minute, Dean will need some help as well. Holed up in their motel room as Sam is, though, high on painkillers Dean could really use some of himself right about now, he got around this particular mess. Didn't see how the thing sliced into Dad. Didn't see the victims.

Dean steps on the gas pedal and tries not to think about the amount of blood his father is getting into the upholstery. Dad is dozing with his head lolled against the window, only responding to Dean's questions with grunts anymore. They really need to get back to Sam and the extra first aid kit and the running water and the fucking _beds_ fast, preferably before Dean's own headache gets so bad he steers them both off the road.

*

_Sammy is sitting quietly up front in the car, bouncing happily on his father's knees as Dean gets to drive the Impala for the first time. Dean is smiling like he just got the best birthday present __**ever,**__ and Dad is laughing, warm puffs of breath in Sammy's ear, a happy sound. His father's fingers are stroking around the bright cast around Sammy's arm, taking off the weight, applying magic Daddy touches, making it not hurt any more. "Will you be home soon?" Sammy asks and Dean glances at him, a small frown on his face._

_"What's the matter with you, squid? We just took off," he teases, but that can't be true, they've driven for hours, Dad has dozed off and it's dark outside._

_" I want you to come back," Sammy says, a note of urgency in his voice, "I can't sleep when you're not here," only it's a lie, he's asleep right now, and next to him in the driver's seat Dean is also sleeping, giving off a soft snore and the car is going too fast, too fast, and Sam is cramped in the passenger seat as his fourteen-year-old body fights his father's unresponsive one for space, and _"Dean! Dean, wake the fuck up!"

**2003**

Today is one of those days when Dean Winchester really and truly resents his new freedom. This whole deal about splitting up with Dad, going on separate hunts to cover more ground is... it's _fine_. But. Still. Far too often, he finds himself in situations where he could really use some back-up from the older man.

He can't wrap his mind around just _how_ Dad managed to do this with two little kids in tow, back before Dean got old enough to really help him out. It takes up so much _time_, and it's not just the actual hunt, it's all this gathering and organizing of information. Dad thinks Dean can handle this one, and he will, but that doesn't mean he doesn't hope Dad will find the time in the middle of his own hunt three states over to return his call.

As it stands, he's alone, and being just one man he's been up all night. Driving into town, looking at the site, talking to as many witnesses as possible this morning. Finding out all he could about the victims and their relations, about the shapes of the injuries, about the length of claws tearing into their flesh, the color of what one hurt and confused woman had described as scales. Gathering all the details he could possibly get, anything that could help him narrow down his list for possible weapons. All things considered, it's no wonder he falls asleep on top of all his spread-out information.

He never sleeps deeply these days, and his sleep is more fitful and all the lighter for being on a hunt by himself, for it being late in the afternoon. _At first, memories of previous hunts intermingle with images provoked by the victims' reports,_ almost making him scatter his pens on the floor as he turns. _After a while, though, he finds himself back in a dream version of the place he is sleeping in._

This often happens when he's asleep. And girls look at him funny when he days dreams are boring.

_A figure is sitting up in the stool Dean dozed off in, looking over the papers Dean had spread out on the small table in the way he remembered Sammy doing, trying to make sense of them. His dream-self gives a painful start, because, __**Sam**__. It's such a relief, seeing Sam going over the papers, even if Dean is fully aware his brother is miles away at Stanford and this cannot be anything but a dream. He needs help, and if this, this dream-version of his brother is all he can get, he'll take it. Soak up all the familiarity of the sight of Sammy bent over his papers, reading intently._

_He's still trying to drink in every inch if his brother's frame when Sammy turns to look at him. "It's not a Chupacabra," he tells Dean, voice all stern and serious, and something Dean can't help but wish is a little guilt for not having been there to talk with the victims. Although expecting guilt from his dream brother? Pretty pathetic. "You'll need different weapons for this one," Sammy says, biting his lip and squinting at the scribbled papers he holds._

_"Like what," Dean wants to ask, but from one second to the next, Sammy is gone and Dean is_ back in an uncomfortable chair in an interchangeable motel room.

*

Later, when the hunt is over and Dean is patching up his wounds, he looks at the gash in his right arm and emphatically does not think about how the night might have turned out if not for that dream.

If he were a little more drugged up, he might even confuse the hell out of his real brother by calling to thank him.

**2005**

It's the end of her shift, her last day before she starts at the photo shooting place, and she needs to go home to pack and sleep. It's the chance of a lifetime, she knows, getting to pay for school by letting herself be photographed for commercials, yet she hesitates to leave. The patient in bed six has occupied her mind all night, and while he hasn't responded to Carmen any more than he has to Annie or Margaret or Grace, it still feels like she's abandoning him.

Alan Partridge, it says on his ID. Three nights ago, he came here in circumstances the local police have been remarkably closed-mouthed about. Neither Dr Fallers nor any of the more experienced nurses have been able to make sense of the bleeding wounds and broken bones, the way he is concussed to all hell. He has never gained consciousness for longer than a few seconds, and has yet to show a reaction to any of the doctors' questions.

Three nights, two days, and no-one has asked after him apart from the police. There have been no phone calls inquiring about Alan Partridge, or any other twenty-five year old matching his description. No concerned mother or girlfriend has burst into the emergency room, no family or even friend has shown hide nor hair. The one phone number Annie managed to find going through the patient's ruined clothes goes to someone called John Winchester, but whoever that is can't be that attached to Alan Partridge, for he never returned Carmen's call.

It seems wrong that this man should be here all alone. In the time Carmen has volunteered at the hospital, there have been drunkards and drug-addicts and criminals, people with whom there'd been a _reason_ why no friends or family were interested in them. For all the marks he got from what- - _who_ever he fought, she doesn't get that vibe from the patient in bed six. And overhearing Grace and Margaret talk, she knows that even the real nurses think this.

She has learned enough about broken bodies to know he'll be beautiful when he's healed.

Dr Fallers said that his body is strong enough, fit enough to shake off even a series of injuries as bad as this, but for all that everyone can see how hard he must have fought for his life, he doesn't seem to _want_ to go on. All the nurses have taken rounds to sit with him whenever they can, whenever there's time in between tending to the other patients.

Comatose and morphine-high as he may be, he flinches whenever he is touched. He doesn't seem to hear when they try to talk to him.

Carmen's not sure _she'd_ want to go on if she'd been in a strange hospital for days, all alone.

She needs to get home and finish packing her things and _sleep_, but still she stands looking down at him from the end of his bed, willing his vitals to light up the monitors with _better_, stronger numbers.

She's still trying to harden her heart to _leave_, when her gaze is drawn to his left hand, the one wrapped up in bandages but not imprisoned by the I.V. His fingers are flexing as if clutching at someone, there's a hitch in his breath, and afterward it seems calmer, going more even. The monitor shows a slight but significant improvement in his pulse. She wants to reach out and check for herself, before she goes, not satisfied by the blink of the machine, but she's afraid to disturb whatever just happened, chase away the good spirit that must have appeared in Alan Partridge's exhausted, concussed fever-dream.

There's nothing more she can do. _Goodbye_, she whispers soundlessly, turns and forces herself to walk away.

**...and one time it wasn't**

**2008**

The first sensation Dean recovers is sound. The sound of the old sink in the small bathroom behind the door dripping _dit-dit, dit-dit-dit, dit-dit, dit-dit-dit_ - the sequence almost as familiar to his ears as the squeak in the Impala's door.

The next sensation that comes back to Dean is touch. It's a sense he's vaguely aware he might not be ready for yet, but all he feels is warmth. No heat, not scalding, not burning his skin, but _warmth_ – a safe and snug and soft mattress. Blankets and cushions.

The third sensation Dean regains is smell. His nose twitches as it takes in the scent of old books, gathering dust and age on the shelves. It widens as it filters out the hint of gun oil, flares at the rare suggestion of sweat that's been sucked away out of a window shut again only minutes ago.

The fourth sense coming back to Dean is taste. Cautiously, he sticks out his tongue to run over his lips They taste dry, and there's a trace of someone washing him with scentless but slightly too expensive soap.

The fifth sense Dean acknowledges is actually the sixth. Acknowledges, not regains, because it's been right with him from the moment he woke up. It's the reason he hasn't yet tried to move, has drifted into wakefulness bit by bit, not sat up in a burst of panic and exploded in pain. It's the sense that tells him he's not alone, even though there's no discernible sound, no smell, no movement sending shifting air against his skin. It's also the sense that tells him he doesn't need to move, doesn't have to be fully responsible yet, doesn't have to know everything about his surroundings immediately.

He lets himself latch onto that presence, focuses on it with all his might so that he can stay in this moment, far far away from memories.

He is Dean Winchester, lying in one of the beds in the room up Bobby's stairs they always stay in when they're crashing at Singer's yard, cocooned in the blankets they tucked him into last night after _pulling him out of hell_. After hugging the shit out of him, after bathing him in holy water. There is warmth and silence to chase away the chill that never went away no matter how hot the pyre, to ease his ears and his mind after the endless sound of their laughter and his own sobs and screams. He lies there, not faking sleep but just resting, waiting until he's ready to get confirmation from the final (sixth) (fifth) sense.

When he opens his eyes, Sammy is leaning against the window frame, tired and healthy and tall as ever, looking down at him. When their eyes meet, his brother's relieved, awed, fiercely content face breaks into a huge smile. Dean can't even do anything but smile back, no strength in his body to call either of them sappy with.

This is not a dream.

_End._


End file.
